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EPA Buzz Kill:
Is the Agency Hiding Colony Collapse Disorder Information?
NRDC Forced to Sue to Get Public Records on Bee Mystery

WASHINGTON - August 18 - The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a
lawsuit today to uncover critical information that the US government is
withholding about the risks posed by pesticides to honey bees. NRDC
legal experts and a leading bee researcher are convinced that the US
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has evidence of connections
between pesticides and the mysterious honey bee die-offs reported across
the country. The phenomenon has come to be called “colony collapse
disorder,” or CCD, and it is already proving to have disastrous
consequences for American agriculture and the $15 billion worth of crops
pollinated by bees every year.

EPA has failed to respond to NRDC’s Freedom of Information Act request
for agency records concerning the toxicity of pesticides to bees,
forcing the legal action.

“Recently approved pesticides have been implicated in massive bee
die-offs and are the focus of increasing scientific scrutiny,” said NRDC
Senior Attorney Aaron Colangelo. “EPA should be evaluating the risks to
bees before approving new pesticides, but now refuses to tell the public
what it knows. Pesticide restrictions might be at the heart of the
solution to this growing crisis, so why hide the information they should
be using to make those decisions?”

In 2003, EPA granted a registration to a new pesticide manufactured by
Bayer CropScience under the condition that Bayer submit studies about
its product’s impact on bees. EPA has refused to disclose the results of
these studies, or if the studies have even been submitted. The pesticide
in question, clothianidin, recently was banned in Germany due to
concerns about its impact on bees. A similar insecticide was banned in
France for the same reason a couple of years before. In the United
States, these chemicals still are in use despite a growing consensus
among bee specialists that pesticides, including clothianidin and its
chemical cousins, may contribute to CCD.

In the past two years, some American beekeepers have reported
unexplained losses of 30-90% of the bees in their hives. According to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), bees pollinate $15 billion
worth of crops grown in America. USDA also claims that one out of every
three mouthfuls of food in the typical American diet has a connection to
bee pollination. As the die-offs worsen, Americans will see their food
costs increase.

Despite bees’ critical role for farmers, consumers, and the environment,
the federal government has been slow to address the die-off since the
alarm bells started in 2006. In recent Congressional hearings, USDA was
unable to account for the $20 million that Congress has allocated to the
department for fighting CCD in the last two years.

“This is a real mystery right now,” said Dr. Gabriela Chavarria,
director of NRDC’s Science Center. “EPA needs to help shed some light so
that researchers can get to work on this problem. This isn’t just an
issue for farmers -- this is an issue that concerns us all. Just try to
imagine a pizza without the contribution of bees! No tomatoes. No
cheese. No peppers. If you eat apples, cucumbers, broccoli, onions,
squash, carrots, avocados, or cherries, you need to be concerned.”

Chavarria has spent more than 20 years studying bees, and has published
a number of academic papers on the taxonomy, behavior and distribution
of native bees.

NRDC filed the lawsuit today in federal court in Washington DC. In
documents to be filed next month, NRDC will ask for a court order
directing EPA to disclose its information about pesticides and bee toxicity.

More information on CCD can be found at NRDC’s www.BeeSafe.org web site.

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit
organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists
dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in
1970, NRDC has 1.2 million members and online activists, served from
offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and
Beijing.
_________________
The Barefoot Beekeeper www.biobees.com

[ksadie23]

Send a note to the US Agriculture secretary,
through the NRDC site
only takes a minute or two

http://www.nrdc.org/action/

Everyone's voice counts!

Thank you for posting this,
Karen

http://www.backyardhive.com
http://www.beeguardian.org

[biobee]

The San Francisco Chronicle is covering the story and there are some interesting comments from readers - http://tinyurl.com/5z2o5x
_________________
The Barefoot Beekeeper www.biobees.com